


To Be Young

by WalkingRevolution



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 18:35:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21432838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WalkingRevolution/pseuds/WalkingRevolution
Summary: Butch finally realizes how he truly feels about his childhood rival.
Relationships: Butch DeLoria/Female Lone Wanderer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	To Be Young

His jacket smelled vaguely of cigarettes and hair gel. She didn’t mind it. It reminded her of him. It was funny now, looking back on their history, how much they first despised each other. But maybe, Butch never really disliked the doctor’s daughter. He told her once that boys always pick on the girls they like the most. When she asked if that’s why he had picked on her, all she got as an answer was a huff and a string of curses.

Now here he was, staring at her from the bottom of the stairs as if she was the North fucking star. He didn’t know when things had changed between them. He just knew that it had happened and no matter what he did, he couldn’t keep his mind off her. The Savior of the Wastes. The Hero of the Capitol. The strange, quiet girl. The doctor’s daughter. The love of his life.

Her blonde hair was tied back in its usual low bun; her eyes watched him silently as Butch slowly made his way up the steps. When he stood before her, he reached out to place his palm on her cheek. She didn’t stop him. She barely even hitched a breath. But Butch was breathing mighty hard, and he felt as if his heart was about to burst out of his chest.

“Why aren’t you pushing me away…?” He whispered, cupping the edge of her jaw gently as his other arm snaked around her back. They stood a foot apart. He inched her closer. She was always good at hiding those small smirks. The ones that said she was the winner. That she knew more than he did.

“Do you want me to?” She asked him, her voice in a normal tone given the circumstances. Butch huffed what she knew was a laugh. He inched her closer, his thumb stroked the soft skin beneath her eye. “No.” He told her. Ruth smiled a calm, cool, heart stopping smile without even showing her teeth.

By now there was little space between them. Ruth could count the shaved hairs on his chin, the small dimples beside his mouth that only appeared when he smirked a certain way. The smile died quietly, serious intent now covering his features. He looked as if he was studying her face, and perhaps maybe he was, but Ruth was a woman of action.

She placed her hands on his stomach, feeling as he breathed in and out. Agonizingly slowly, she drew her fingers in, grabbing fistfuls of his white T-shirt to gently pull him closer. His fingers dug into her back, the hand cupping her face stilled and titled her farther up to him.

“Taking your time as usual.” She remarked with that same damn smile that used to irk his nerves so hard back in the day. Hell, it still does, but now it’s better. Now it’s a look she reserves for him, one he waits for desperately, one he finds himself thinking of late at night.

“Why ya ruining the moment, now? I’m trying to be romantic.” Butch says, but the flush of his cheeks and the carefree laugh lets her know that he’s savoring this moment. He’s also testing her. Seeing if she’ll allow this form of touch between them, after so many years of animosity.

“I’m not stopping you.” And it’s those words that seem to release whatever sluggish nature Butch planned. He’d take things nice and slow, maybe set up a candlelit dinner and ask her to tell him stories of their childhood. They’d talk and smoke and drink and get to know one another as friends rather than schoolmate rivals.

But they’d already done all that before. So his original plan was naught, and when he came back to her home and saw her standing at the top of the stairs in his jacket, looking like she was the Messiah herself, well all those other thoughts flew out of Butch’s mind. He knew he had to let her know then. The joke was on him though, because she’d known way before he did.

And she’d tell him about that too later on. But for now, she just let him lean in and kiss her, throwing away whatever harshness they had in the past. None of that bullshit mattered now. Not to him. Not to her. Now was their time to taste one another and learn new things about each other they never knew before.

**Author's Note:**

> Lana Del Rey's music just really inspires these romantic fallout scenes.


End file.
